Repeat & repeat. Each morning the weather report given upto radio waves & somewhere a receiver. The farther you getthe more it’s accurate forecast difficult like shouldn’t you knowbetter. Each day less sure, more sky turned whale belly, soblue I spend hours open-mouthed. It’s why I make a perfectmessenger. Conditions appear generally average: pure guesswork.Average means nothing in a place no one’s been, which isnearly all of it. Same shape: compass & cross, & at times Ibless you in the names of North South East West, rosaryrepetition to pass time on this slim shingle of sand. I forgetmyself; you don’t pray. Direction east swell direction east, amen.Something like that maybe. Waiting each night for your nextsignal. Forgive me for forgetting the ocean is wide. But you’reso close to heaven now & we’d like to know what it is you see.

CASEY PATRICK earned an MFA from Eastern Washington University and currently lives in Minneapolis. She’s been awarded residencies from Hub City Writers Project and Tofte Lake Center. Poems from her first manuscript-in-progress have appeared or are forthcoming in Pleiades, The Journal, Juked, Passages North, The Adroit Journal, and others.